User blog:The Deadliest Warrior/Pirate vs. Ninja
The Pirate: Merciless killer of the high seas! The Ninja: Legendary master of death from Japan! WHO IS DEADLIEST? Pirate Weapons: Ninja Weapons: Battle: Pirates: Ninjas: The wooden ship rolled heavily on the rough, choppy seas. The flag of Britain was lowered down the mast and replaced with a black flag with white skull and crossbones on it. Over the horizon, the remains of a true British ship-of-the-line drifted and slowly slipped under the water. The H.M.S. Juno had lost its battle with a vicious pirate ship, the Devil’s Advocate. Onboard the slightly damaged ship, Captain Gerald “Sweetwater” Wesley, a former British sailor who committed mutiny against his captain and turned to the life of a pirate, looked down on a map with several crew members. “The waves are takin’ us off course,” grunted Captain Sweetwater. He pointed a thick finger, laden with rings, down on the map. “We’ve already been blown past India. At this rate we’ll be taken right into China or somewhere else. This can’t be.” “Don’t worry, Cap!” said William “Scurvy” Jones. “Anywhere we go, treasure follows.” “Aye,” agreed Vanessa “Sea-Legs” Pratford. “Don’t you worry. Our cannons are still workin’ and confidence is high. Let the seas take us where she wish. We fear none!” The pirates raised a cry over the table and went down into the captain’s cabin to further make plans. As the Devil’s Advocate continued to blow off-course, closer and closer to not China but Japan, Miyamoto Sashimi crawled across a rooftop in the darkness. Behind him were four fellow assassins and he turned to make sure they were behind him. Tokugawa Yasumi nodded and lowered a rope down the side of the small house. Hana Izanami, the female assassin of the team, whipped out her tessen, or war fan, and slid down the rope. Miyamoto quickly pulled the rope up and waited. Soon enough, Hana scaled her way back up the wall, her tessen blades red with blood. Miyamoto nodded with satisfaction as another mission had been completed, and the ninjas vanished as quickly as they had come. Within the week, the Devil’s Advocate docked at one of the Japanese coastal ports. The English pirates were unaccustomed to the Japanese way of life but enjoyed themselves extensively, buying local dishes at the taverns and looking at the exotic weapons – as well as enjoying the local women, for the men’s part. One evening, Captain Sweetwater broke the news to his crew – they’d be leaving the next night. Hearts heavy, the pirates set out to enjoy themselves for one more night in Japan. Miyamoto Sashimi and his ninja team watched from behind the barrels and crates that night. The moonlight reflected surrealistic silver across the village and through the ocean water. His team had been told to take care of these foreign intruders – Japan had been isolated from Western influence for nearly 150 years, and the shogunate was not thrilled to see such people on Eastern soil. Miyamoto gave the signal and one of his men, Tatsume Kyotunaga, darted forward, wakizashi sword out of his scabbard. Tokugawa followed and then Hana. Finally Gokomatsu Taro went charging at the Devil’s Advocate. Miyamoto brought up the rear of the group. They each slipped on metal claws over their fingers and easily scaled the side of the wooden ship; as they leaped over the edge onto the deck they stumbled upon Henry “Pickles” Nelson, who was about to retreat to his cabin. Tatsume raised his fukiya to his mouth and blows out a poisoned dart, which strikes Pickles in the neck. The pirate grabs his neck, startled, cries out, and staggers over to the side of the ship, where he topples over into the water. The pirates, half-asleep in their cabins, are unaware of Pickles’ death cry. Only Captain Sweetwater leaves his private cabin and goes into the common cabin room to find out what the commotion was. To his shock, he finds Gokomatsu slitting the throats of each of the sleeping pirates with his wakizashi. Roaring with rage, Captain Sweetwater pulls out his flintlock pistol and shoots Gokomatsu Taro in the chest. Only three pirates escape their comrades’ fate and Captain Sweetwater shouts, “We’re under attack!” Scurvy Jones and Sea-Legs Pratford roll out from their hammocks and grab their swords and other weapons. The only other survivor, Edward “Cut-Throat” Whitecliffe, also got up and jumped for his weapons without question. Cut-Throat and heads for the cannon while Scurvy, Sea-Legs, and Sweetwater head to the deck to try to find their attackers. As Scurvy is about to head right onto the deck, Captain Sweetwater stops him and takes out a stinkpot. He throws it onto the deck and the bomb smokes and sputters off a foul smell, and the pirates hear a man coughing loudly. Running onto the deck, they find no one near the stinkpot, but a knife narrowly misses Sea-Legs’ head. Looking up, the pirates see Tatsume climbing up the rigging. Scurvy fires a flintlock pistol but misses. As Tatsume disappears in the ropes above, Scurvy and Captain Sweetwater head down to the starboard side of the boat, leaving Sea-Legs in the middle of the deck. Behind her, Hana creeps closer to the female pirate with her tessen in hand. Hana does a somersault and tries to overpower Sea-Legs but the pirate dodges, rolls to the side, and fires a pistol, hitting the ninja in the leg. Hana throws a glass egg at Sea-Legs, blinding the pirate, and rolls in quickly, whipping the fan blades of the tessen across her adversary’s neck. Sea-Legs falls like a stone, but as Hana tries to creep away, a loud boom is heard and Hana goes sprawling across the boat, a gaping hole in her torso. Pieces of metal rain down around the wounded ninja as she cries out in pain and dies quickly. Cut-Throat has brought the cannon up to the deck, and as the smoke clears, he tries to reload the cannon, stuffing it with cutlery from the ship’s kitchen, intending to use it as grapeshot. However, several shurikens come from seemingly nowhere, disabling the pirate and knocking him to the ground. He looks up to see Tokugawa approaching quickly, swinging his kusarigama menacingly. With a quick flick of the wrist, the hook end of the double-sided weapon carves Cut-Throat’s chest open. Gasping for air, the pirate can only watch as the ninja brings the ball-end of the kusarigama down on his head, cracking it open. Captain Sweetwater orders Scurvy to climb the rigging up after Tatsume, while he himself sets out to hunt any remaining ninjas. Scurvy clenches his cutlass in his teeth and quickly goes up the ropes nearly as quickly as the ninja. Tatsume is startled as Scurvy climbs into view but recovers and whips out his wakizashi. The two men begin to duel their way up to the crow’s nest, Tatsume’s lightning-quick blows being matched by Scurvy’s slower but more powerful strikes. The crow’s nest is cramped and small, leaving the ninja little room for his elegant maneuvers. The pirate lunges forward with his cutlass for a killing blow but Tatsume slashes across his wrist, nearly severing the limb. As Scurvy yells in pain, Tatsume lunges forward but is hit aside by the blunt wooden end of Scurvy’s boarding ax, wielded in his uninjured hand. The pirate scowls and raises his hand for another blow but Tatsume lunges forward and plunges the wakizashi right through his opponent’s neck. Red blood bubbles from the wound, but as the dying pirate falls, he wraps his strong arms around his killer and both pirate and ninja fall from the top of the crow’s nest to their death on the deck below. The pirate captain was unaware he was being followed by the two remaining ninjas. As he stumbled upon the corpses of Scurvy and Tatsume, a creaking was heard behind him. Whipping around, Captain Sweetwater tosses a grenado at his attackers. In the resulting blast, Tokugawa flew backward, dropping the kusarigama, and hit the ground dead. Miyamoto Sashimi, however, rolled quickly away from the blast and charged forward with his poisoned daggers. Sweetwater grabs his boarding pike and lunges forward to keep his opponent at bay. Miyamoto throws one of the daggers but misses. As he tries to come charging in with the second dagger, the pirate captain twirls the boarding pike end over end and whacks the ninja over his head with the heavy blunt end of the pike. The ninja goes falling forward hard and busts his chin on the tough wooden deck. As Miyamoto looks up weakly, his mouth bleeding profusely and vision spinning, Sweetwater raises the boarding pike over his head triumphantly. The ninja raises one hand with a blowgun as a last attempt to kill the pirate, but Sweetwater steps on the assassin’s arm, forcing him to drop it. Then, Captain Sweetwater stabs Miyamoto Sashimi through his midsection and through the deck, embedding the weapon in the wood of the ship. Miyamoto is too weak to cry out in pain but he spits blood and bugs his eyes in terror right before his head tilts slowly to the side, eyes glazed and starry. Captain Sweetwater shoots the ninja in the head with his last flintlock pistol to make sure he’s dead, and then looks up at the night sky. The stars are bright, and while his crew is dead, the pirate knows of a port he could sail to where he could get a fresh crew. Looking around, he notices other Japanese ships docked in the port, and he wonders which one would suit him best to make the fastest escape. WINNER: PIRATES Expert's Opinion While the supporters of the ninjas backed their stealth and use of guerilla tactics to confuse and surprise their opponents, the pirates' winning factor was their use of firearms and military knowledge of how to use them effectively and brutally in combat. Category:Blog posts